


so don't explain, kiss me

by lesbianharrie



Series: disaster harry [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 10:19:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16473701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianharrie/pseuds/lesbianharrie
Summary: Harry’s college roommate is named Louis Tomlinson, but all he can think about is how much he misses his cat.In which Harry and Louis are roommates, and it takes three seconds for Harry to make a terrible first impression.





	so don't explain, kiss me

**Author's Note:**

> i made a kissy noise at my fan to get it to turn to me and this happened.
> 
> thank you keely @humhalleloujah for fixing my typos while you're working

Harry’s college roommate is named Louis Tomlinson, but all he can think about is how much he misses his cat.

He knows he has other, more pressing priorities ahead of him. Like the fact that he accidentally scheduled himself for three 8am classes, still needs to order his textbooks, forgot his laundry basket, and cried the entire morning and now has puffy red eyes. He knows, okay, but he really just wants to hug his cat.

That’s how Louis meets him for the first time: curled up on his side under a blanket too heavy for late August, scrolling through his photo meowlbum and silently sniffling.

“Fuck!” Harry scrambles out of bed, and immediately sees that his roommate is holding hands with two young girls. “Shit!”

“Are you Harry?” one of the girls asks as Harry aggressively snots into his own sleeve.

“Yeah, I’m not sick!” Harry offers stupidly. “It’s just been a long day. I swear I’m not contagious. Or high. Never high! Drugs are bad, don’t do them. Not that I’d know! DARE, Drugs Are Really Evil, am I right?”

The three of them stare at him for a full twenty seconds in silence, and Harry laments that their dorm room is on the first floor and he won’t die from flinging himself out the window.

“I guess I’m Louis?” Louis says, holding out a hand for a moment before dropping it and wiping it on his pant leg. Is he sweaty? Is it too warm in here and Harry just didn’t notice? Of course it is, it’s the end of summer and he’s moving his stuff in.

So, without saying a damned word, Harry runs to the windows and pulls them open just as another girl walks in carrying a stack of books.

“Louis, I have your books and your handbook for—”

The girl shrieks as a gust of wind blows in, scattering the pages on top of the pile. It’s like a scene from a movie. Pages go absolutely everywhere: on both their beds, under both their beds, across the desks, into Harry’s half unpacked suitcase dedicated exclusively to underwear. 

This is Harry’s cue to exit.

So he takes off, nearly knocking over his new roommate and family as he runs down the hallway and into the common room. He stands in the doorway with his hands out for a second before doing the most logical thing and crawling under the shitty table.

Harry stays there for an hour and a half, counting gum and graffiti until he hears Louis and his family leave. When he hears Louis’ laugh fade away, he sneaks back into their room and buries himself under the blankets again. Was he laughing at Harry? Probably. Is Harry going to let it shape the future of his college career and influence all his future social interactions? 

Absolutely.

-

The next few weeks are so painfully awkward that Harry actually considers contacting his RA and moving rooms. However, a quick scan of the website indicates the room transfer policy doesn’t handle embarrassing situations. 

It’s not like Louis’ giving him any shit. Louis keeps to himself, offering pleasantries when social norms call for them, but they more or less live separate lives. Harry has no idea what his schedule is like, so he assumes Louis is out and about or in class most of the day. When he’s in the room he reads a lot, with headphones in and his head bopping to whatever song he’s listening to. There haven’t been any guests, and Louis usually stays in at night, even on weekends. From what Harry can gather, Louis’ shy and quite introverted, and certainly uninterested in befriending catastrophes like Harry.

Which is a goddamn shame, because once Harry is able to recover from the sheer embarrassment of his first impression, he’s hit with the horrible, disastrous revelation that Louis is breathtakingly beautiful. Like, alarmingly attractive. He’d think of another pair of alliterate compliments if he were studying literature but alas, he’s a shit pre-law student.

Which, by the way, he’s going to fail. He’s going to fail out of law school before he goes to law school, which he thinks is impressive. His parents probably won’t, but he’ll be in a history book somewhere.

He knows he’s going to fail based on the first homework assignment he gets, which is just a reading. Harmless enough; Harry has enough colorful highlighters to keep it interesting. What he hasn’t accounted for is the reading to be so goddamn dry and crusty that he’s confusedly highlighted the entirety of the two paragraphs he’s read so far.

Harry throws the packet down against his thighs and buries his face into his hands. He’s not going to cry. He refuses to cry. College is scary and overwhelming and exhausting and lonely but it’s not the end of the world. He’s going to be fine.

He hopes.

Harry blinks back his tears and takes a glance across the room. Louis is scribbling in a notebook, headphones on as usual, focused and quiet. 

Harry tries not to stare, he really does, but he finds that Louis’ face is the perfect antidote for preventing post-8am naps and fucking his sleep schedule into oblivion. It’s not creepy. It isn’t. No matter what his conscious says it’s not weird to stare at your acquaintance level roommate to keep himself from falling asleep.

Harry honestly doesn’t have the energy to care, even when Louis looks up and catches him staring. Louis shoves his headphones off.

“You okay?”

“Struggling a bit,” Harry admits.

Louis gives him a gentle smile. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Unless you know the foundations of law, then I don’t think so.”

Louis nods to himself. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do, okay?”

Harry picks up his packet, a wave of determination washing over him.

“Harry?”

He looks up. Louis is still smiling at him.

“You’re going to be okay.”

Harry had no idea that’s exactly what he needed to hear in this exact moment, but he feels instantly more calm. “Thanks.”

He gets back to work, not noticing that Louis keeps on looking.

-

It’s nearing the end of September, and it’s still stupidly hot. 

Harry and Louis both have their fans on full blast as they do their homework. It’s become an undeclared tradition that they both work at the same time, and Harry would comment on it or maybe ask Louis to get food sometime if he weren’t afraid of ruining the peace they’ve now established as roommates. 

Louis has been making flashcards for the better part of an hour, hunched over his desk and playing soft music from his phone. He doesn’t use headphones when he’s making flash cards. He tried the first time but he kept getting his pens tangled in the cord. Harry couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the night after that.

Harry burned out on his own homework ten minutes ago, so he’s scrolling through Gemma’s instagram while he takes a break, watching a TBT video she posted from when they first adopted the cat. Gemma makes a kissy noise and the cat turns to the camera.

“Thatta girl, pumpkin!” Gemma coos in the video. “Who’s a good girl, Evie?”

Evie is a good girl. Harry doesn’t say it out loud, thank god, but he still misses the shit out of his stupid cat. He swipes to the next video only to find his hands are so sweaty that he’s leaving a mess of thumbprints on his screen. He cleans it with his shirt before replaying it, the sounds of Gemma making kissy noises as the cat purrs filling his ears. 

The fan on his desk is pointed just a little to the left and missing him completely, which is probably why he’s still so disgusting right now. If he weren’t so lazy and focused on his cat, he’d get up and adjust the position. 

But no, Harry’s an absolute idiot, so he makes a kissy noise. 

To the fan.

An inanimate object.

It takes exactly three seconds for him to realize what he just did

He prays to every higher Deity that exists that Louis is still bopping along, unaware of his trainwreck roommate.

But when he looks up from his phone, Louis is looking straight at him.

No, no, no, no, no.

“Did you just make a kiss sound?” Louis asks him.

Harry reconsiders what he thought when he first met Louis, and decides that if he lands on his neck in just the right way then jumping out the first floor window may kill him after all.

“Harry,” Louis presses, and Jesus Christ why won’t he drop it and let him cry in peace? “Did you make a kissy sound just now?”

Welp. Here goes nothing.

“I did, yeah.”

“Oh, finally.”

“Wait, what?”

Harry has no time to process anything as Louis jumps from his desk, crosses the room, and makes his way onto Harry’s bed.

“What’s going—”

Louis kisses him before the words are out, and holy shit, what the actual fuck is going on?!

Harry lets himself have a few seconds of pure, awkwardless bliss before he decides he needs to figure out how he went from zero to hero in a nanosecond. He reluctantly pushes Louis away.

“What’s going on?” Harry manages to get out, vaguely out of breath and head spinning.

“What do you mean?” Louis asks, head tilted and beaming, and shit, Harry’s about to ruin this, isn’t he?

“Why are we kissing?”

“You made a kissy noise.”

“I did, yeah, but…”

The smile drops off Louis’ face immediately. 

“Oh, shit.” Louis scoots back, and maybe Harry isn’t the only disaster in this dorm room, because he falls right off the bed.

“Louis!” Harry jumps off and crouches down next to Louis, who’s started groaning with his eyes screwed shut. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Are you hurt? Are you choking?”

“Why would I be choking?” Louis hisses, holding the back of his head.

“On your tongue, maybe?!”

“I didn’t bite me tongue off! I fell off a bed!”

Harry has the sense to help Louis up, but as soon as Louis’ steady he backs away.

“I’m sorry for kissing you, I shouldn’t have,” Louis says quickly, eyes down and still rubbing his head. “I crossed a line, obviously. I hope you can forgive me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“When you made that noise, I thought,” Louis huffs out a sigh and looks up at the ceiling, blushing, “I thought it was, like, your weird way of telling me you were into me, too. I mean, what else was I supposed to think? You’re a bit of a weirdo.”

“You have a point there.”

“But I obviously made a mistake, so, I’m sorry. Truly.”

“Well, I don’t accept your apology!”

Louis pales instantly, and oh shit, that wasn’t the right answer either.

“No, wait, I want to kiss you! I wanted to kiss you the second you walked in with your sisters and I scarred them for life!”

“They thought you were hilarious, but okay.” Louis nods apprehensively. “But you didn’t make the kissy noise for that reason?”

“No!”

“Then why did you?”

“I wanted the fan to turn in my direction!”

Wow.

Louis blinks at him. “You…you wanted the fan to—”

“I was sweaty and gross and looking at videos of my family cat on Instagram.” Harry explains, waving his hands around a lot more than necessary. “Like, I’m so used to being around my cat, by the way you’d love my cat she’s a fatass but so cute. Anyway, she comes when you make a kissy noise, and I wasn’t thinking so I made a kissy noise. To make the fan turn to me. It didn’t work.”

Louis stares at him for what seems like eternity before he does the unthinkable.

He laughs. He laughs so hard he falls over again, rolling around the floor and straight up cackling.

“Shut up!” Harry softly kicks his leg. “It’s embarrassing!”

“It is,” Louis wheezes. “Oh, shit, it is. You’re a goddamn mess, mate.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Harry grumbles, crossing his arms and sinking to the floor.

Louis eventually calms down, his giggles tapering off as he catches his breath. He turns his head to look at Harry, cheeks red and blue eyes crinkled and sparkling. Fuck, he’s still beautiful even when he’s mocking him.

“I like that about you.” Louis says softly, and Harry can’t help but melt a little.

“No you don’t.”

“I do,” Louis insists, sitting up and scooching closer. “It’s endearing, I promise.”

“Being a socially awkward, panicky mess with no filter is endearing?”

“It’s who you are.” Louis pokes Harry’s knee. “So yeah, I’m into it a bit.”

“You’re crazy, and probably making a huge mistake.”

“Wow. You really are going to fail pre-law.”

Harry decides he’s had enough humiliation for the day and kisses Louis quiet. Louis giggles against his lips and if Harry has to embarrass himself every day for the rest of his academic career to keep Louis laughing, then he supposes failing won’t be so bad after all.

Wait, what?

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me on tumblr @lesbianharrie !!!


End file.
